Fresh 6.6 earthquake hits off New Caledonia: Monitors

A powerful new earthquake hit off New Caledonia Wednesday just hours after a strong tremor hit the Pacific region, but there was no new tsunami alert, authorities said.

The quake struck at 5:43pm local time (0643 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) some 192 kilometres east-southeast of Tadine in New Caledonia, an overseas French territory north of New Zealand.

The US Geological Survey revised it to magnitude 6.6 from an initial measurement of 7.0.

Residents of New Caledonia received an urgent text message directing them to go to refuges immediately after the earlier and also shallow 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck two-and-a-half hours earlier.

There have been no immediate reports of damage from the earlier tremor.